Rivergarth

How to Cook Oatmeal

2011-02-26T09:44:00.004-06:00

My facebook friends are always posting how to live life, and it's all good advice! Naturally, I wouldn't have any other but the wisest and best facebook friends in the first place.

However, they have all overlooked one of the most important life skills. I, who happen to possess this ability and having perfected it over the years, feel it is my calling to share this vital message with all my friends.

Therefore, How to Cook Oatmeal:

1. It starts at the store. Buy Quaker Oats. You will find several types of these. The instant are over-processed, have stuff added and lack the rich flavor of oats. There is also the 20-minute cooking oats. These are delicious, but they take 20 minutes. What you want are the oats labeled Old-Fashioned that cook in TWO or less minutes. They will be in a tall, fat, cylindrical, cardboard canister.

2. When you get them home, peel off the plastic ring that seals them closed. The lid is recloseable, so the package is also the storage container. There's only the little ring to throw away, and the ring is not an intact circle, so no ducks will be hanging themselves if it floats away from the landfill and ends up in a river.

3. Dedicate a 1/3 c dry measuring cup to your oats. This part is optional, but if you want to save 30 seconds each morning finding the measuring cup, you can just store one INSIDE the container with your oats!

4. If you absolutely must make your oats in under three minutes, you'll want to identify a deep-dish, microwaveable cereal bowl in which to cook them. With the quicker method, a shallow bowl will boil over. Assuming you have a deep-dish bowl, your oats and a 1/3 c measuring device, proceed as in step 5.

5. Measure 1/3 c of oats and dump in your microwaveable, deep-dish bowl. Using the SAME measuring cup, measure 1/3 c of water TWICE and pour into your oats. Now your cup is clean, and you can invert it to dry (if you're in fast mode) or wipe it dry and put it back in with your oats.

6. Add Salt. Just sprinkle a couple shakes from a salt shaker. The only thing to know here is to do it BEFORE you cook the oatmeal. If you do it afterward, the result is not as good, but I can't quite describe the difference. Just trust me and do it before you cook it.

7. (Optional) Add raisins. If you like raisins or any other dried fruit, add them now before cooking. This will plump them up. Very delicious.

8. Place your bowl with oats/water/salt and optional dried fruit in the microwave. Loosely cover dish with your favorite microwave-dish-covering material. I keep a plastic lid near the microwave and cover everything in that to prevent blowouts all over the inside of my clean microwave. You can get by with a paper towel, but that's wasteful if you use a new one every morning.

9. Microwave on your regular setting (which is high for everyone I know) for 1 minute and 33 seconds.

If using a shallow bowl, you will have to heat twice. Cook for 46 seconds. Stir and then cook for another 46 seconds. You may have to experiment.

Depending on the material of your bowl, it might be really hot. Use a pot holder or, as I do, a sleeve or loose corner of a shirt, to pull it out.

10. Sweeten as you like.

Sugar, white or brown, works, but it takes more than I like. I use generic Equal, but that is going to fry my brain, I'm told. I have used honey, but that's a bit heavy for an already heavy food. Stevia might work, but I haven't used it.

I also add walnuts at this point, but that's because I love walnuts. Pecans are quite decadent, as well.

Here is where milk or cream can also be added. This is over-the-top rich and amazing.

11. Stir it up and eat it.

When you are all ninety-five years old with strong hearts and slim thighs, you will thank me for this essential piece of life advice!

First Week of February

2011-02-05T12:15:00.000-06:00

January may be an inevitable Jotun, but Spring is just as inevitable. Like augurs of Rome, we read the signs of her in the flight of birds first. She does not dwell in February, but she sends her heralds, and by the end of this month, I will have bulbs sprouting, maybe even a few blooming, like the silly Scylla, which are the color of the clear sky exactly.

The star magnolia will bloom in February, as well. Its blossoms are floucy, snowy white against a bare-branched skeleton of the mother tree. It is ghostly on a cloudy day, but sparkles in the sunlight. I might even see the first spears of daffodils, particularly the precious tête-à-tête, which are small and early. Invariably, the white stars of Bethlehem will spear up and form buds.

In fact, when this snow thaws away, there will be warmth and moisture enough that all the small, hardy, plants, which are ridiculously fragile looking but not at all, will shake off slumber that has become ever more fitful and extend their tendrils, shoots, buds or martial spears. To greet them will be sunlight in adequate portions to assure everyone, plant and creature alike, that it’s not all a hoax.

And then the frivolity will begin!

Battery Hens

2011-02-02T10:16:00.003-06:00

I've been wanting to say something about these animals for a while, and since I discovered that St. Brigid is patron of chicken farmers and this happens to be her feastday, this is a good time.

You may not be familiar with this term, battery hens, but it refers to hens who are housed in battery cages. These are pens small enough to restrict the hen's movement so that she cannot stretch her wings. She stands in this cage her entire life, without respite, on a wire floor that slopes downward in order for her eggs to roll down for collection.

There are better and worst conditions for these battery hens, but it is not unusual for them to lose all of their feathers, leaving them vulnerable to cold and open to disease. Not to mention the gross abuse of their natural, instinctual functions. As a keeper and knower of chickens, I assure you that the animals suffer in these cages. (I have spared us all the gruesome photos and full list of maladies, but included links above if anyone needs more detail.)

This is how a large number of YOUR eggs are produced, the ones you buy at the grocery store, the supposedly "farm-fresh" eggs. Therefore, I urge any and all to please buy your eggs from local producers, home-grown producers, whenever you can. If you have space, consider raising three or four hens of your own.

These eggs will be better for you, and they taste MUCH better than eggs from the store. If you've never had an egg from a living, clucking, scratching, happy chicken, I believe you'll be amazed at the quality these would-be mothers can produce.

wiggle!

2011-01-25T10:40:00.001-06:00

Boom your shakalakalaka boom
Gomp your tampity tam tams
*wiggle*wiggle*wiggle*
Me oompa boompa bay
*clap*clap*clap*
*grin*

In Honor of Egil's Fight with the Frisians

2011-01-19T09:36:00.004-06:00

I'm reading Egil's Saga...Yes, again! Each time I read it, I discover something new. This time, it was the magic used by Atli in his duel with Egil. For some reason, it simply didn't filter into my head that Atli, "skilled in magic arts," was blunting Egil's sword strokes with magic! Yet, the text is quite clear. Most marvelously and quite in character, Egil gets around the magic thus,

He threw down his sword and shield, ran for Atli and grabbed him with his hands. By his greater strength, Egil pushed Atli over backwards, then sprawled over him and bit through his throat. Atli died on the spot. -transl Bernard Scudder

This outrageous act is followed by Egil running over to the sacrificial bull and breaking its neck. He follows this up by, of all things, a poetic recitation of his own composition.

I'm so smitten with Egil and his feats that I wrote him a poem, In Honor of Egil's Fight with the Frisians.

Egil and his sea wolves chased the Frisians who fled

across a bridge over a ditch to a farther field.

Once over, the Frisians pulled the spanning planks

but Egil leapt running across the banks.

Too bad none of his band was as largely bred.

The Vikings left Egil forfeited,

but he fought eleven till the field ran red

then returned to the wolves who had thought him dead.

Ch'ing P'ing Lyrics

2011-01-18T11:45:00.003-06:00

Waking in the gallery
at dawn, and told it's snowing,

I raise the blinds and gaze into pure good fortune.
Courtyard steps a bright mirage of distance,

kitchen smoke trails light through flurried skies,
and the cold hangs jewels among whitened grasses.

Must be heaven's immortals in a drunken frenzy,
grabbing cloud and grinding it into white dust.

-Li Po

Li Po is one of my top ten favorite poets. :)

2011-01-17T10:12:00.002-06:00

In the greenhouse, I sat in the sun and soaked it up like a lizard.

2011-01-15T11:36:00.004-06:00

Moonlight drifts down to the snow;
one glitters, one glows.
Silent is a great, old owl.

Another Template Change

2011-01-14T09:18:00.002-06:00

Forgive me another template change, but I noticed a problem. In some posts, I used colored fonts, especially when copying out poems and excerpts, and they weren't showing up against the white background. Rather than find and change all the font colors, I decided to go back to a dark background.

Hopefully, this is the last change.

Written on a Snowy Night

2011-01-11T08:36:00.002-06:00

One Summer Day in the North

Blind in one eye, Bright in the other,

Ve and Vili's brother, the bees' conductor.

Buzzing galdr and songs of Balder

Among poppies so bold, brewing mead so gold.

Sparlin

2011-01-02T10:38:00.004-06:00

Tracing back my surname (specific to MY genealogy, mind you!) suggests the following sequence of spelling changes: Sperlingham-->Sperlingh-->Sperling-->Sparling-->Sparlin.

I probably had an ancestor, Jan or Pieter or Niels, etc., who lived in the town of Sperlingham, thus, Jan of Sperlingham. I give this ancestor a Dutch first name, because his descendants later settled in New Amsterdam, and their names are found on the rolls of the Dutch Reformed Churches.

Sperling might refer to a fish--might! I've tried to track down the etymology, but it is ambiguous. If it does refer to a fish, I like to imagine that Sperlingham was along a coastline, perhaps a fishing village and that the great number of men were fisherman.

When Jan & family traveled to America, the name, "Jan of the town of Sperlingh," was shortened to Jan Sperlingh and so on. Some of the changes were, undoubtedly, errors, but might also have been personal preference. In one family, at least, from Indiana, the sons variously spelled their name either with or without the terminal "g," giving rise to Sparlins and Sparlings who were first cousins.

I am the descendant of one of these brothers who dropped the "g," and now with Social Security numbers firmly rooted in our society, there's less chance the spelling will change soon. However, a SSN, as immutable as that seems to us, is only a blip in history, and I have no doubt that hundreds of years from now, a descendant with a similar--but not exact--name will be squinting at my name, Kecia Sparlin, and making up stories about me, too.

Nearly January

2010-12-29T09:34:00.004-06:00

It's a little warmer today, 40s in the late AM. The ducks are slow, as sedate as ducks can be--a relative condition, naturally.

We haven't had much precipitation this winter, and I'm getting worried, but then...I always worry this time of year...about moisture for the garden. It'll come, I remind myself. It always comes.

But what if it doesn't? I mean, droughts are not unheard of!

I can water from the hose once the real thaws come, but it's not the same, not at all. Soft water from the sky is not the same as hard water pumped up from the ground. The plants respond differently--true fact.

A Note on Winter by Emily

2010-12-16T09:05:00.003-06:00

LXXX

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

Duck Talk

2010-12-12T09:29:00.003-06:00

The behavior and chatter of chickens is well studied. Although not all the mysteries of a hen's cackle have been revealed, there's a pretty good understanding of chicken talk. They're extremely simple creatures, after all.

I don't know how well duck talk has been studied, ducks like the mallards on my river, but I suppose, considering that a chicken can be understood, that I can speculate the ducks are having a fine time this morning as the gale howls down the stream in freezing temperatures.

While we cringe and huddle inside, the ducks are dipping and paddling almost joyously. Some fly in, some fly out of the throng, the ladies quacking greetings and departures (boys don't quack). One could probably resent them for their giddiness in such miserable weather OR...we can be glad someone, at least, is having a good time.

How's the weather? Just ducky!

If I Were a London Taxi

2010-08-03T06:16:00.003-05:00

If I were a London taxi, I would drive around town, never exceeding the speed limit.

I would show you the fabulous London tower, Buckingham Palace, home of the Queen of England.

I would ride you on a slow boat to China, eat lunch from a brown paper bag, serve Foster's.

If my engine grew tired and cranky, I would fill it up with premium fuel and call "Click & Clack" on my radio Saturday morning.

If I had a fleet of Mercedes, I would throw them into the drink so no one could envy them.

-Dave Sparlin

Smiths

2010-07-31T07:34:00.004-05:00

Why there are a lot of them...

In my direct ancestral line alone, there is

Anderson Smith; 15 children

his son, Vincent T.; 17

his son, George Washington; 14

his son, Elbert Columbus; 5

his son (my grandpa), Odie McBride; 6

And then there are all those great-aunts and uncles of mine, for example, Vincent's brother, John, also had 11 children. How many more SMITHS in that single generation?! It boggles the mind.

It's a fun family to research though, because they have all the best names, Andrew Jackson Smith, Narcissa Rachel, Priscilla Aquilla, Elbert Columbus, George Washington, Solomon, Serilda, Columbus Cornelius, Marcus De le fe, Luticia Oregon, and on and on. They tended toward grand names and to use colorful nicknames. I suppose when you have that many children, you have to get creative about naming them.

Normans

2010-07-31T05:30:00.003-05:00

I can't stop learning. Even when I'm not particularly interested, there's always another bit of information thrust on me. The Normans, for example.

If I ever remotely thought about it, I suppose I imagined the Normans were of a genetically Frankish/Gaulish origin, "Norman" due to their "northern" location on the French map. Wrong.

North Men, it turns out, were from a place real north, not a French 'burb. They were Vikings who stayed and married the local, rich girls. From Wiki; "The Viking contingents who raided, and ultimately settled Normandy and some parts of the Atlantic coast, included Danes, Hiberno-Norse, Orkney Vikings, as well as Anglo-Danes from the English Danelaw, under Viking control." And William the Conqueror was a grandson of Rollo, who successfully besieged Paris with Sigfred. Rollo's Wiki article has this cultural gem, "Legend has it that an emissary was sent by the king to find the chieftain and negotiate terms. When he asked for this information, the Vikings replied that they were all chieftains in their own right." According to the articles, the raiders learned French quickly, but it appears they never fully embraced the continental lifestyle, not if this passage is an indication,

"Eleventh century Benedictine monk and historian, Geoffrey Malaterra characterised the Normans thus:

Specially marked by cunning, despising their own inheritance in the hope of winning a greater, eager after both gain and dominion, given to imitation of all kinds, holding a certain mean between lavishness and greediness, that is, perhaps uniting, as they certainly did, these two seemingly opposite qualities. Their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the very boys were orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war."^[1]

It's good to know the truth, actually, because Norman conquests were the exception to that old saying, "Well, at least we can always defeat the French." Rather, Normans further proved the point.

Heaps of Blessings

2010-07-29T07:26:00.004-05:00

I wasn't sure whether to title this post 'Heaps of Blessings' or 'be careful what you wish for.' Since the day I hooked up the scanner and got the program running, I've been pestering my sisters for the pictures from the house, not because I'm particularly interested in keeping all the family photos, but because I want to scan and save them to CDs so they can be easily distributed to as many family members as want copies.

I just came home from a week-long vacation to discover two overly-large boxes of jumbled photos, no rhyme or reason to any of it, not by dates, places or people. In fact, there's also a box of lasagna noodles and a basket lid in one of them. It's a wonderful treasure, but...O, gosh, the mess!

Here's one jewel before editing (Estal, Dale and Danny):

Laundry Room: Before Pictures

2010-07-09T11:18:00.005-05:00

I should be ashamed to post the hideous state of my laundry room, and I can only do so because I AM going to fix it, in fact, have already begun the process. Notice the lovely holes in the ceiling? First the toilet above leaked; that was fixed. Then the shower above leaked; that was fixed. Literally, a house falling down around our heads.

Also, notice Hannah on her square of carpet. For some reason, both Hannah and Maggie like to sleep there in front of the dryer. Underneath both the scrap and the area rug is a linoleum floor. Hannah spent a night in this room once and chewed out a large hole about 2x3 feet in rough diameter. She never did anything like that before and hasn't since so I don't know what got into her that night. Crazy girl.

Fortunately, there's superME to do all the repairs and make this room functional and pleasant to look at once and for all. Yay!

Another Phase Complete

2010-07-06T07:55:00.003-05:00

They're just plain, white walls, but that was the goal! They're clean and crisp, and the foyer/stairwell area looks 10x brighter. I'm pleased and feel like I can open my front door to guests and family without cringing. Now I want to turn my thoughts to the ceiling.

In the meantime, I began dismantling my laundry room in an attempt to create a functional and comfortable workspace, so I have household cleaning equipment and supplies strung all over the downstairs hallways. It's quite a mess.

In there, I'm planning on stripping the damaged, linoleum floor, repairing the holes in the ceiling, removing the popcorn, reorganizing the storage shelves, adding a laundry-folding table (which can double as a sewing table), stripping the remainder of the wallpaper (in various states of adhesion), replacing missing trim and painting the walls. Pictures will ensue, I'm sure. *grins*

Catwalk

2010-06-27T11:38:00.006-05:00

With gross disregard for life and limb, I constructed this catwalk to reach the top middle of the wall. Here are a few pics of the first coat of primer. The final color is white, too, just not as stark. It's slightly more buttery, Behr "toasted marshmallow" to be exact.

I finished the first coat of primer today, but I'm not sure what I'll be doing the rest of this week because the MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD is flying in from NY tomorrow. I haven't seen him in so long, and I'm so happy he's coming.

Purchasing Doors and Windows

2010-06-23T07:56:00.002-05:00

Remember the door Al broke? Well, I've been doing the research to buy three new ones.

Immediately, I eliminated Home Depot or any other independent source of doors, because I didn't want to deal with an assortment of retail people in trying to match doors with installers and warranties and financing. I had three companies into the house, Mid-America Exteriors, Renewal by Anderson and Pella.

Mid-America only had vinyl doors and windows, wanted me to put a mortgage on the house to finance it and tried to convince me that wood doors were crap.

Renewal had awesome, wooden doors, all kinds of options, warranties and service to die for, but they wouldn't tell me the price. Even when I had Al call them, they wouldn't provide an estimate. I was almost ready to go with them, but I wasn't about to give them carte blanche! How can you sell windows without telling people the price first?

Pella had great, wooden doors, warranties and service just as good as Renewal, although fewer options in styles. They do have, however, an attractive finance plan and--this was the kicker--they gave me an estimate.

I'll never know if the price is less or more than Renewal, because Renewal isn't telling!

So...Pella windows it is. Now I'm just taking some time to be sure I'm happy with my choices before I send the rep the exact details.

Pictures to come in a couple months!

Phase 1 Complete

2010-06-23T07:45:00.006-05:00

I finished painting the first room of the foyer (above), except for the ceiling, which I'm still mulling over. The entry is now so bright and clean that it inspired me to go wash another wall, but then washing it revealed all the wear and tear and stains, which left me quite dissatisfied, so now I'm painting an additional wall (below) before I start on the stairwell. THEN, I'll go back and think about ceilings some more. Crown molding is rattling around in my head, maybe a plastered texture....

Project Update: Painting the Foyer

2010-06-21T08:18:00.005-05:00

That's Al, camera shy.

The mess at the mid-point of a painting project.

Summer Home Repairs

2010-06-08T08:10:00.012-05:00

Project today: Home Depot for paint for the foyer.

Yea, it's a 14 ft ceiling, and I have to paint around these doors, cutouts, trim, angles and 2 textured walls. My ladder is visible in one picture, the ladder with which I plan to make a catwalk and, most likely, break my leg.

I'm not doing a drastic color change, but after 12 years, 4 teenagers (with various cutting and projectile weapons labeled as "toys"), a walking cane and more than 8 dogs, all of them puppies at one point, it's past time for a refresher of this central artery of the house. I do NOT look forward to it.

The new paint job is only one of many projects we're looking at now that we're empty-nesters again. I already began ripping carpet out of the basement, harder than it seems, because the carpet tacks are nailed into concrete. Eventually, the upstairs carpet will have to go, and we'll need all new flooring. For now, we're enjoying the cool concrete in the basement while we get through a hot, Kansas summer.

Upstairs in the living/dining room, Alan tried to save money by replacing the worn, sliding door with the one that we never use. These doors, I should preface, have been the source of great annoyance for, at least, the past five years--that's how long the sliders have been worn to the point that I have to perform a Herculean feat every time I want to open it. And yet, I have to open it several times a day as ingress/egress for the dogs to the back yard.

To picture this properly, one should also know that one of these double pane doors is VERY heavy, heavy enough that I cannot lift one or--if you can imagine this--walk it corner by corner across a floor. Imagine if you can, Alan trying to lift these heavy doors out of the sliders (top and bottom), transport to the other opening and then try to fit them into the other set of sliders WHILE lifting.

Much to my delight, the inevitable occurred! Finally, after five years of door HELL, I'm getting new doors for the decks!

Hiding guiltily with his dog after breaking the door. Al often breaks things by trying to brute-force them to work, which is a long-standing joke around here. This time I was thrilled!

The Goddess

2010-06-04T08:50:00.004-05:00

My dream; feel free to interpret:

I previously (previously meaning that in the dream, I came equipped with this information) knew about something special in an underground cavern. A great deal of the dream was concentrated on the look of the cavern and the experience of climbing down into it, as well as, traversing its floor.

We (there was another individual with me, male, similar age, undefined) entered through a roughly circular hole in the ground. I had the impression of a small sinkhole, about eight feet in diameter. We had to heft ourselves over the edge and climb down a vertical wall, much like descending one of these fabricated rock-climbing walls, except that this was grittier...crystalline, dirty white. It was calcified or like very hard salt. I remember that it was frightening, but the handholds were relatively simple to find, and we descended without any trouble. Nevertheless, I had strong feelings of claustrophobia that I had to fight.

Because I was the guide, I had to ignore my own fear about the cavern and lead on. At the bottom, the floor was extremely convoluted, the same texture and color as the walls. There didn't appear to be a light source, but the pale color was relatively uniform and seemed, because of its quality, not to require any light to be visible.

The floor, as I said, was extremely convoluted and had this same crystalline, crunchy texture. At one point, I could look down on us in the dream and see a shoeprint, not a footprint, but what looked like the mark of a man's dress shoe. There was nothing to say it had been made by a man, but I had that impression throughout. I deduced that the floor where we were walking was once molten/plastic/liquid and that someone had stepped upon it in that state and left his shoeprint as it cooled.

Our destination was not immediately visible, but a short walk of about 30 yards around a bend in the cavern revealed the object of our attention to my guest. It was a bronze statue of a goddess. She was approximately 6 feet high and stood on a base of another foot. Her arms were raised high at her sides (a bit like the arms of a many-armed goddess, but only one pair), and she had a semi-circular "halo," also of bronze.

She was stationary, but quite animate. Her eyes were aware. I remember being extremely afraid of her and wanting to fall down on my knees and beg her not to obliterate us and everyone else in the world with a blink of her eye. On the other hand, we felt so much admiration for her power that we also wanted to raise our hands and praise her over and over. You never quite lost your fear, even when assuming a posture of love, and you had a deep compulsion to sacrifice as a gift to her, even if you knew it was paltry and of no use to a being as powerful as she was.

My companion expressed his concern (to the goddess) that she shouldn't be hidden away in this small hole, but out where people could see and praise her beauty. In one breath, he sincerely meant that out of love AND he wanted to flatter the goddess out of fear.

I had to explain, somehow transmitting the thoughts of the goddess, that it didn't matter where the statue stood, that her power was far beyond the confines of matter or this image where we were alternately shuddering in fear and rejoicing with praise.

The only way she was hidden was when we (mortals) were too blind to see her. Despite that, her power continued to flow through everything in the world, sentient or not, living or not, every crystal of sand, every idea of man. In my mind, I could see her influence as a hazy blue sphere encompassing the whole globe of our planet, permeating the earth and the surrounding space. I remember wishing that I could love her without the fear, but the fear was integral, perhaps because of the great difference in power between us. I suspect that the fear was my fault, that I created it, that I nourished it unwittingly in every aspect of my life, that it had attached itself to me so strongly that only death would free me of it--if even then.

This is when I woke up, still afraid of the cavern and the goddess, and tried to shake off that creepy feeling you have after a nightmare, except this was a little different, not so intense a fear, but still enough to wake me.

*shudders* I still feel a tingle of fear at the back of my neck!

On Wearing a Corselet in a Fight

2010-06-02T17:28:00.005-05:00

Readers and friends know I'm a fan of northern epic literature and the sagas, and I swoon over Beowulf--what a hottie!

Anyway, I'm occasionally caught reading yet another analysis of the symbolism, customs, yada, yada, you know the stuff master's theses are made of...within Beowulf, the poem.

The latest, not that current really, is one I've read before from a book call God's Handiwork, and I just had to share this statement made by Richard J. Schrader, the author. He's discussing Beowulf's struggle with Grendel's mother, and he writes, "He [Beowulf] is saved from her knife by God and his corselet as she seeks to avenge (wrecan) her son...."

Now, what I'm thinking here is that it's a fine thing to have God on your side in a fight, but it's a damn, fine thing, nonetheless, to be wearing a corselet!

Big'un

2010-05-24T10:59:00.004-05:00

The kitchen window opens out onto a screened deck under which we have a large, messy lumber pile the inner depths of which we haven't shifted for twelve years. All of this faces the riverbank, which begins to slope down only a few feet from the house toward the water . In a few words, PRIME habitat for growing these monsters.

This is not the first of this spider's generations I've photographed and surely not the last, but it's the first one intrepid enough to creep in the open kitchen window and splay itself among my dirty dishes!

I usually leave these wonderful creatures alone, happy that they're fulfilling their niche under the woodpile, but this one had to go I'm afraid...under a newspaper and the flat bottom of the nearest, empty vase.

If you open that link above, notice the date, May 18, 2009. Next year I shall be looking out in late May!

Roleplay

2010-01-05T09:43:00.003-06:00

I love my roleplay*. I only wish there were more and better forums, better moderated. Also, there should be a global organization that identifies all the small entity forums and allows them to link and search throughout. Anytime the word "roleplay" is googled, this parent organization should pop up as the first choice, and then the link should blink in bright, neon lights, "HERE IS ALL THE ROLEPLAY YOU'LL EVER NEED, SORTED, FACILITATED AND MODERATED FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT!"

Small forums could apply to the parent organization, which would then sort the forums by topic, world setting, maturity of content, population and other categories. Forums would receive ratings for quality, participation and ease of play so that roleplayers would know what to expect when they sign up.

For example, as a roleplayer, I want to know just how often to expect a reply to my thread. Currently, I can sign up to a thread, but my only idea of how active it may be is to search through old replies for the dates of individual posts, a tedious process to say the least. Also, I always have this feeling that the perfect world is out there, hidden in an obscure, roleplay forum, one which I'll never find in this vast network of websites, blogs and forums. Another roadblock I've found is the requirement for niggling bits of computer apps. When I run into that, I simply stop the registration process, but maybe, just maybe, what I want is over that wall!

I'm not complaining. I'm making a suggestion for how to improve the ability of roleplayers to find each other and increase the quality of play once we do. Fortunately, I am currently participating in two (or three), fantastic roleplay threads that I love to write and to read, so I'm personally satisfied.

But what about when they run out? Then what? I'll have to wade back into the surf and see what I can find. And...they always do run out. There's no forever (or at least I haven't found it) in a roleplay. The dread of finding and beginning another makes me want to nurture the two (or three) stories I have and enjoy. And with that said, I have someone waiting for a reply...
.

.

.

.
*Roleplay: Alas, the general population may not be aware of this utterly fascinating activity, so I'll define it, if such a beast as amorphous, polymorphous and/or omnimorphous can be described. It comes in many forms, which is a good thing and a bad thing, as reflected in this post. The basic play begins with an individual imagining a character s/he would like to act out and in what world setting they'd like to place their character. I won't describe the process of finding a partner(s), the lament of the above post, but once other individuals with similar tastes are identified, they each take turns advancing a written story, usually through posts on a forum, although there are other formats such as Second Life and MMORPGs.

Disclaimer: If a D&D'r ever reads this, I didn't forget you, I just didn't think going into your game and its influence helped define what's happening currently on the web. You esoterics may jaw about that history over cognacs, because I've already written too little about a topic that's too large.

A Song for Mother's Night

2009-12-18T08:14:00.003-06:00

The Mothers´ Night of Yule

Stanza 1
The mother´s night of Yule has come,
Another wheel is turning,
To Asgard´s hall we strike a call:
Come join us and share in your learning.

Chorus:
Hail, hail to the Ase and Van,
Your might and main known to every man.
Come, come to our hallowed hall
And join us for drink and boasting.

Stanza 2
The wall between our fallen kin
and us is ever thinning,
We feel their might course through the night
The web of wyrd we are spinning.

Stanza 3
Together stand we, lovéd kin,
Our hearts and strength are we bringing.
As Yule draws nigh, our spirits high
Will fly on the love of our singing.

© Karl Donaldsson
Tune: Greensleeves

Six Days til Mother's Night

2009-12-14T09:20:00.006-06:00

I'm looking forward to Mother's Night on the 20th, just my personal, quiet celebration--like I do most things--a Mother's song (to the tune of Greensleeves) I found and a pine candle I bought. For a display, I thought I'd bring in a few sprigs (I'm not big on denuding my trees) of evergreen and add some apples and nuts from the grocery store. Frigg, Freya, Idun and Sunna will be the honored goddesses, and I will ask blessings on all the grandmothers, mothers, daughters and sisters I know. If that's not good mojo, I don't know what is.

About Idun (Idunn, Iduna, Idhuna): Ramblings

Idun ("She Who Renews") is the Norse goddess of youth, who grows the magic apples of immortality that keep the gods young. Her husband Bragi was god of poetry.

Remember Pagan immortality doesn't mean "forever pacing in heaven." It's about the never-ending cycles of renewal and death that we observe and in which we participate. Despite all the fearmongering, ancient and modern, there's no uncertainty in spring and winter; ya gotta love that. And when the sun and earth runs out, there are other stars, and when the stars all run out, there is still the universe, and when the universe runs out, there is rest and another universe. Do your worst, you dirty, carbon dioxide polluters, you can't outdo the gods!

But about Idun...

Loki, the god of mischief and fire, was once responsible for arranging Her abduction by the giant Thajazi. Without Her apples, the gods soon began to age, and threatened Loki until He agreed to rescue Her, which He accomplished by borrowing Freyja's falcon robe and fleeing with Idun who He had changed to a nut. (This story must be a season-cycle tale; there are lots of them like this, apple to nut, etc.)

Some say that Gerd the Giantess is another aspect of Idun. Freyr brought her eleven golden apples and Draupnir. Sunna may also appear as the aspect Gerd, whose beautiful white arms, raised aloft, illuminated sea and sky. Freyr could see her from a great distance and fell in love.

As we are in love when the morning sun rises or when She returns from southern climes as She will begin to do on Mother's Night, gracing us with her light and warmth a little more each day. Even in the coldest winter, the longest night (literally), she holds the promise of renewal. I'd say that's a miracle or...humankind's propensity for hope. In either case, it's worth celebrating.

End of Ramble.

Cream of Chicken

2009-10-17T12:24:00.000-05:00

1. Onions sauteed in butter.

2. 2 T whole wheat flour; mixed to a paste with the buttery onions.

3. Added milk slowly, heating and stirring constantly.

5. Salt.

5. Added half a can of Swanson's chicken broth.

6. Can of cubed chicken, including the juice.

7. Pureed a can of potatoes and juice; added to the becoming-soup.

8. Pepper.

9. Stirred; heated.

Soup's on!

Dreaming in Color

2009-10-17T09:18:00.003-05:00

Last night I dreamed in bright colors! I dreamed horses of roan and palomino, bay, white and black, buckskin. There were five white horses and a girl with long, blonde hair was riding one. I remember viewing her from the sky and wanting one of the white horses to ride for myself. So beautiful.

Then I dreamed chickens, so many chickens! They kept breeding, producing more chickens, itty bittys and regular chickens, all stuffed together, and I was scrambling to clean out more pens with more feeders and more waterers to make room for all the chickens. They were colored, too; gold and speckled with black, russet and white and yellow and dove gray. Most beautiful were a number of true blue chickens with black collars and black-tipped tails. Although the birds bred freely throughout the flock, I always had ten to a dozen of these chickens, blue as forget-me-nots. I remember simply looking and looking, enjoying their intense color in my dream.

Plans for Soup

2009-10-14T12:45:00.003-05:00

Inspired by the turning leaves and colder weather, I'm planning soup for supper. I've had a butternut squash in the crisper for a couple weeks now, waiting for this particular idea to pop into my head. Originally, I planned to bake and mash the squash like potatoes, which is great, too, but today soup seems even better!

Recipe for--um, what shall I call this?--Butternut Cheese Soup!

I already cut the butternut into fourths and deseeded it, turned the open sides down in a glass, baking dish and added about a 1/2 in. of salted water. It's baking right now at 375F. Takes about an hour to be soft enough to mash, which is what I want.

With that done, I have to make the cheese sauce, a simple roux to which I will add shredded cheese, sharp cheddar, because that's what I like.

Here's how I make the sauce (this is mostly for Kami):

1. Begin with a melted fat/oil like margarine, butter, bacon drippings, depending on what flavor and how many heavy calories you want.

2. In equal amount to the hot/warm oil, add a helping of flour. So if you used a tablespoon of margarine, use a tablespoon of flour. This stirs up into a paste.

3. Now add a liquid; water (if you don't want flavor) milk, cream, beef, chicken or vegetable broth. You add only a few tablespoons at this time. Let it sit in the pan to warm before you try stirring it in. I don't know why, but I like to use a wooden spoon. The first "stir-in" is the most important. If you can make it creamy at this point, then you don't have to worry so much about how fast or how much liquid you add after that. Continue to add the liquid until you've gotten to the volume you want as your sauce or gravy.

4. Important: Taste and salt and season. I like pepper in gravy, for example. For stroganoff, I add paprika, etc.

5. You want to let this heat for a while so the flour cooks (uncooked flour tastes pasty) and the sauce thickens. O, and you can't stop stirring at this point. It's stir and serve.

If you use only butter, flour, salt and milk/cream, then you have what my mom called white sauce. She made it for nearly every meal. Now if I add shredded cheese to melt, then I've got cheese sauce.

AND, if I puree butternut squash and incorporate that, I'll have soup!

Heart for Quail

2009-10-14T09:20:00.004-05:00

Every year Al purchases quail from a farm for dog training. This year I threw a fit and wouldn't take care of them for him, so he's doing the feeding/watering/cleaning himself. However much I've removed myself from their care, the quail are still sitting there next to the pen for my banties. Every morning and often during the day, I can hear the quail cooing--more of a tiny "pi-pii"--wooing me. They know my weakness, that I would save them from their inevitable and senseless death, make plans to house and husband them, breed and raise their generations!--if only they could win my heart with their charming calls.

Oatmeal

2009-09-29T11:51:00.005-05:00

Dad has forgotten how to make oatmeal, and Al never learned. I wonder, sometimes, how they would survive without me here to feed them both like baby birds.

When I discover two, large, failed attempts at bowls of oatmeal, Al says to me, pointing at the oatmeal box, "That's how you make it, 2 to 1, right?" How do I tell him that you have to follow the spirit of the instructions, not the letter? He wouldn't understand. "Yes, dear, that's the recipe."

I scrape the glop from one bowl into the glob in the other bowl and path out to feed it to the chickens. When I return to the kitchen, I add oatmeal to the grocery list. *sigh*

Chasing Butterflies in August

2009-08-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Chickens and Tomatoes

2009-07-31T09:13:00.003-05:00

Our tomato stand on the front porch. Dad can sit in the shade with his radio and watch for customers (our neighbors). It's nice to chat with them, and they love the yard.

Here are the Buffs! Don't they look fine?

Miss Oddball

2009-07-30T08:31:00.004-05:00

I put my chickens out into their yard/coop arrangement on Monday, although it was cloudy and cool, and I had my doubts. I was prompted to move them because they were beginning to fly up and perch on the wire of their enclosure in the barn. I didn't want them getting lost in our piles of junk where I couldn't reach them, but a snake most certainly could.

The very day I moved them, one, the oddball, bonus chick Murray McMurray Hatchery sends with an order, came up with a bad leg. The limb was splayed out horizontally from the hip in the wrong direction while she sat, and she couldn't stand on it. We inspected it for a break, but could find nothing wrong. She was also eating and keeping up with the baby flock, though it was a pathetic sight to watch her flapping and hobbling after them. Al thought we should kill her, and I would have if she was sick or suffering. She was neither--just had a bad leg. I've seen animals get along with a missing limb before and do alright, so I gave her a chance.

You can probably guess where this is going. This morning, Thursday, Miss Oddball is standing on her good leg and holding her injured leg in the correct position, even if tentatively. She is placing some weight, tentatively again, on the bad leg when she walks. The great thing is that she is upright, not sprawled on her belly. Where it will go from here, I can't say, but for the moment, it looks good.

Complete, Utter, most Enjoyable Waste of Time

2009-07-24T14:03:00.006-05:00

I've been very busy. *cough, cough* That is, I've been very busy doing what I want to do--write little stories that have absolutely no worth whatsoever. Worthless and yet I think about them night and day, especially at night when I wake up with a phrase or a thought and grope blindly for pad and pen. In the morning, I decipher these blind scratchings and try to find time to develop the idea or use the dreamed-up phrases. Between tomatoes, dogs, chickens and Dad, mowing the lawn and the other jillion housechores, there's not much writing going on, but that doesn't keep me from thinking about it.

Below is the latest endeavor, a taste of where my head has been. Be warned that this story and the race and creatures involved is out of its usual, rich and complex context. Nevertheless, I felt it had more general appeal than many of my others, which only make sense if the reader is steeped in the lore of Azeroth.

And now...to share: How the Raptor Got Her Stripes

Though not shy, Moyja is reserved. She’ll laugh and smoke and tell tales with a body all night round the fire, but she’ll tell little about herself. She won’t say how her Da died or how the grief of it and her loneliness and fright afterward, though she was young and adaptable, nearly ruined her. She won’t tell what she and that boi, Deishi, did up in the red canyon alone. She won’t explain how an island girl, refugee in Sen’jin, ended up managing the wares and finances of a guild in Silvermoon. If she does talk about herself or kin, it’s always to another troll, Mai Mai for one, although she’s been known to waggle her tongue after too much rum.

When the troops at Stonebreaker Hold gather for stories, Moyja’s glad to share from the vast collection of tales in her head--just not those few she keeps to herself. Tonight she tells several, each in her turn. Only the single Tauren at the Hold, slow and dignified, rises to speak in his turns. The rest, orcs and trolls, sit relaxed and tell their stories more casually. This is the frontier, a forward base, so their storyfire is rough, just the smoker in the inn. Leaving the orcs to their rotgut, Moyja smokes instead. The Tauren, an elderly druid, shares the bowl and the mild pleasure of the herb with her.

Moyja’s last tale is old, one of the earliest tales she learned from her Da, one of those make-believe stories told to whelps. When it’s her turn, she passes the bowl to the Tauren to free her hands for the story-telling and pays careful attention to her orcish so all will understand her.

Way back when trolls live only undah da trees, some in da cool nort’, some in da warm sout’, b’fo’ Muddah Sun ‘dopted us, b’fo’ we build temples n cities, dere be a troll, Daki, who tame da first raptah n teach she ta carry ‘im. Dis raptah be da same coloh all ovah, ‘ead ta toe, capapie; pearly-silvah like moonlight.

When Muddah Sun lit da world n reveal da rainbow, Daki discover ‘e blue skin n ‘e golden ‘air like Muddah, n ‘e joyful wit’ da oddah trolls, who laugh ta be bright. Only t’ing make Daki sad be ‘e raptah, ‘lone o all da beasts, still pearly-silvah like moonlight. Daki’s clan, ridin’ on orange tigahs n pink n purple chocobos (‘member dis be long time ago), tease ‘e, ‘cause only ‘e mount pearly-silvah like moonlight.

“Daki,” say one, “Chu raptah so pale. Be she ill?” Anoddah jus point, slap ‘e knee n laugh. One, a pretty, girl troll, roll she eyes n toss she ‘air n look to a shmexy troll warriah ridin’ an orange-n-black stripe tigah. It be all more den Daki can bear (‘specially da girl).

Next night, aftah Muddah Sun paint da sky She second time, Daki mount up ‘e raptah, pearly-silvah like moonlight, n head fo’a secret place ‘e know, spot ‘e used t’go swimmin’ in da warm springs. Fact, da lost land where ‘e first find da raptah n tame she, Un’goro Cratah. ‘Course, lands different in dose days b’fo’ da Sundering n places close today, once distant. Places distant, sometimes toss side-by-side. I don’ know ‘ow fa’ o ‘ow long Daki travel, but ‘ventually ‘e arrive at da Cratah where watahs steam n black pools ooze. Parrots live ‘ere, b’loved by Muddah Sun, who paint dem ‘specially colohful.

Daki, b’sides bein’ a sensitive troll, be a great ‘untah, n ‘e got a plan to make ‘e raptah bright. Daki ‘unts parrots, lots n lots o parrots, red ones, blue ones, green parrots. When ‘e kill n pluck ‘undreds o parrots, ‘e coax ‘e raptah, pearly-silvah like moonlight, right into one o da black, oozin’ pools of ta’. ‘Ow ‘e get she t’do it, we never know, ‘cause she a girl raptah, fastidious ‘bout she looks. When she emerge, she not pearly-silvah like moonlight; she black n sticky, jus’ as Daki plan. One by one, ‘e apply da colohed, parrot feat’ahs to ‘e raptah’s sticky ‘ide, but ‘e not got enough o all one coloh. Lot of green ‘e got, so ‘e start wit it, but den ‘e add a row o blue, den green again, til ‘e raptah mos’ly green all ovah wit’ blue stripes, n a few pink n a few red, quite bright!

To set da feat’ahs, Daki ride ’e raptah t’Fireplume Ridge in da center o da crater, where ‘eat o da lava bake da black ta’ n feat’ahs firm to ‘e raptah’s ‘ide. No longah she pale, pearly-silvah like moonlight, n Daki start ‘e journey back ta da clan, eagah ta show dem (‘specially da girl) ‘e brightly-colohed n striped raptah.

In triumph, Daki ride inta ‘e village. She-raptah prance proud in she feat’ah coat o many colohs n waggle she tail jaunty as dey parade pas’ da troll girl, who look n look wit’ eyes gleamin’ like fiyah n fresh blood. When Daki offah da girl ‘e ‘and, she leap up on da raptah’s back n share ’e ride. Not long aftah, she share ‘e life, n dey make toget’ah a bambino, a li’l whelp.

Da raptah, turns out, come from Un’goro Cratah wit mo’e den feat’ahs. Inside she stable, she build a nest o straw n lay a purple egg ovah which she fuss wit’ great concern, ‘llowing no one close ‘xcept Daki. Aftah much anticipation by all, da egg finally ‘atch n out spring a tiny, male raptah, not pearly-silvah like moonlight at all, but emerald green wit’ an undah-belly o delicate pink n stripes o sunny yellow!

Evah since, raptahs born wit’ bright stripes on rainbow-colohed ‘ides, n trolls still ride dese mounts, who still waggle dere tails jaunty wit’ pride in dere looks.

Bountiful July

2009-07-18T11:07:00.004-05:00

How many times did Dad complain that his zinnias weren't as bright and bountiful as he'd like? And how many times did I say...just wait, Dad, they'll come on...

Marigolds that self-sow each year. Not much now, but like the zinnias, they'll come on in their own time. In my gardener's eye, I see them bold and gold. Soon, very soon...

Fuzzy picture of the 4 o'clocks, which we do not enjoy as we should, because they bloom in the evening. But sometimes, when the night is mild, I step out on the porch to find them glowing in the dark.

Every year, I strive to do picture-justice to the crepe myrtle, which are the royalty of my yard. I fail miserably in these two pictures, above and below, but use your imagination with me...

Dry, hot weather always causes the leaves of the paper birch to yellow and drop, as now. They're pretty and a harbinger of autumn to come, scattered over the plumbago.

This butterfly and his kin are all over the purple coneflower, but here is a stray I chased in order to put his pic on the internet. He's famous now!

Perfect, and it's not the only one. Loads of large, rounded, smooth-skinned, delicious fruit this year. We're eating them sauteed (green and red), fresh on salads, sliced on sandwiches, grilled on fish, chopped up in pasta. It is truly a bounty, and we are appreciating our marvelous, tomato fortune as we indulge in the grandest of the summer fruits. See below!
Not as bountiful, but nearly as satisfying is a wagonload of onions, fresh dug from their bed (below).
When I let it go, propping up here and there, weeding out what threatens to mar it, then I end up with this carpet of impatiens each year. Below, the cilantro happily co-exists with the flowers. Above, a sunflower from the birdseed I offered this winter.

June Update

2009-06-16T08:59:00.003-05:00

The first of our zinnia blooms. Sweet in pink and orange, one of my favorite color combinations.

The completion of the pour. Needs a bit of cleaning up and shaping up, but the hardest part is done. No more rough or muddy track behind the deck, and we have a lovely surface to run the lawn mower to the back yard.

He Reads Me Like a Book

2009-06-15T07:48:00.003-05:00

My little dog, Otis, knows me too well. This morning I put his food in the dish and sat down at my computer, but he continued to watch me with an expression I know. "Will there be anything else you desire from me, O light of my world?" he asks. Love before food is his motto. Me, I slip on the wrist protectors I wear when I write, and Otis turned to begin his breakfast.

June Rain

2009-06-12T08:15:00.000-05:00

Squalls shake the Basho
tree -- all
night my basin echoes rain.

-Basho

Three Bees and More

2009-06-11T09:00:00.004-05:00

Indulge me another poppy photo. I couldn't resist when I saw the bees piling up at the poppy plates. There are three in this one (one in shadow, difficult to see) and another small critter enjoying the delights of poppy. Ah, to be a bee!

Well Said

2009-06-09T10:08:00.001-05:00

Saw this signature on the forums I visit:

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk, Martin Luther King walked so Barack Obama could run, Barack Obama ran so all the children could fly.

Lilies Expectant

2009-06-05T08:56:00.008-05:00

Like these zinnias, the face of Rivergarth is turned toward summer and the light.

Poppies are perfect...

and pretty with purple.

Which is the loveliest and sweetest-smelling of chicken coops? The one at Rivergarth draped in honeysuckle.

Summer lilies poised to pop.

Is there anything more beautiful than morning dew on the tomato leaves?

Only this, a baby tomato, fat with potential.

"We don't waste people..."

2009-05-27T11:49:00.004-05:00

From The Pew Forum (via my watchful uncle's email)

May 26, 2009

Indian gay marriage law takes effect in Oregon

by Bill Graves
Religion News Service

A Coquille Indian Tribe law allowing same-sex marriage took effect this week, and two women married Sunday (May 24) on the tribe's reservation in Coos Bay, Ore.

Kitzen Branting, 26, and her partner, Jeni Branting, 28, who now live in Edmonds, Wash., became the first same-sex couple to legally marry in Oregon, though their marriage will be recognized only by the tribe.

Kitzen Branting is a member of the Coquille tribe.

Neither Washington nor Oregon has legalized same-sex marriage, but as a federally recognized sovereign nation, the tribe is not bound by the Oregon Constitution.

"My tribe recognizes the marriage, so that is really important to me," said Kitzen Branting. "Anytime we come to a tribal function, I know my marriage is just as valid as anyone else's marriage."

The tribe adopted a law more than a year ago that recognizes same-sex marriage and extends to gay and lesbian partners -- at least one of whom must be Coquille -- all tribal benefits of marriage. The tribe wanted to work out laws governing child support issues before activating the law. It took effect Wednesday (May 20), said Melissa Cribbins, assistant tribal attorney.

Kitzen and Jeni Branting married in the tribe's Coos Bay plankhouse, a 3-year-old meeting hall built in traditional Coquille style with cedar plank walls. No other couples have inquired about marrying yet, Cribbins said, "but I wouldn't anticipate this will be the only marriage."

Last year, Brian Gilley, a University of Vermont anthropologist, said the Coquille Tribe (which tribal leaders prefer to pronounce KO-Kwell) is probably the first tribe in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage.

When it was posted at OCICBW, Tracie the Red provided this wonderful quote,

"A Crow elder once said: 'We don't waste people the way white society does.'"

Perfect Poppy Poem

2009-05-26T10:48:00.006-05:00

It doesn't exist, the perfect poppy poem, that is. This is the second year I searched without success for it. Poets avoid such drivel; flowers are out of fashion (goddess forbid), and there you have it. Maybe it isn't possible, the perfect poppy poem, that is.

As long as we're alliterating, have you ever seen a more pregnant plant? This is a leek, icon of the warrior, and hasn't our hero gone all feminine on us? This bud has been plump like this a week or more. I've never seen one bloom, so I'm anticipating it with delight. O, sure, I know all about onion buds and flowers. (I'm supposed to snip them off for reason of keeping the bulb fat.)

In fact, here's the ordinary kind in the picture below. Humble to say the least.

What's this then? Another of my leeks, this one who stunningly failed to represent the standing, stalwart hero of the Viking Age, the literature of which had a love affair with leeks.

Sheesh, I can't do onions without a picture of my Egyptian Walking Onions (EWO; see my clearinghouse of EWO links on my right-hand sidebar.)

Every Year the Miracle

2009-05-26T08:54:00.005-05:00

Honeysuckle and roses. How can it be that they bloom together every year?

Dad and I are simply in awe each time we step outside the door. My pictures are sad shades of the glowing colors of the roses, and there is no pictorial facsimile at all for the heavy, drowsy, drifting fragrance of honeysuckle.

"But what of the elegant, the exquisite, poppies you posted last year, Angel? And how go the zinnias?"

"Never fear. I'm getting to that, gentle reader. Post pending."

edit: exchanged cloudy morning pic for a new photo taken once the sun (Bless Her golden heart.) sizzled away the clouds; added a sunny photo of the red roses

Hugs Tim Jones Tight

2009-05-26T08:23:00.007-05:00

Tim Jones shreds me up with his impossible wisdom. No man should be that sane.

He's the man, gentle readers, who Caught a glimpse of Jesus down by the railroad tracks... Read him share how Heaven and Earth are Full...

Making Progress-Lots Still to Do

2009-05-25T13:52:00.004-05:00

Eihwaz-Algiz-Othala

It began to rain just as we were dumping the last wheelbarrow-full of concrete. It rained hard enough to alter the surface as fast as I could smooth it. Then a drip off the roof developed that persisted in washing out a small pit right in the center of the slab. All in all, we managed, and it was an adventure to add to our stories.

Somehow Marie Osmond Found Her Way Onto My Blog

2009-05-22T07:28:00.004-05:00

...it must have been love. Being Mormon (or Catholic or Heathen or Jewish) does not wholly define each or any of us! It's the reason I don't care for the word "religion," because it tends to categorize people into slots. We are so much more, and our individual, personal beliefs so much more subtle and complex than these religion packages. Marie Osmond shows what a classy lady and a good mom she is. Read here.

Bird Stuff

2009-05-20T09:33:00.005-05:00

This set-up of oranges halved and poked onto branches attracts the Baltimore orioles, male and female. They splash the juice and seem to be making a mess, but when they're done, the orange flesh is perfectly excised from the half, leaving the septums of the sections intact.

We're having so much success with the birdbath in the front yard that I added this one outside Dad's window.

Mother and Father Robin made a ruckus when I almost stepped on their baby. I quickly took this picture and moved away, after which the worried parents calmed down.

I know of at least three families of robins nesting on the property. This nest is in the apricot tree.

Pink: Three Roses and a Peony

2009-05-20T09:23:00.004-05:00

The "Nearly Wild" bush variety centered in the grassy island in the driveway. My uncle will remember the layout. Morning sun adds the magic.

And here is the reason for the expense and work of building the rose pergola, which now shades a Rosalina bench beneath it. The rose is "American Beauty-Pink"

Even the ditch is blooming...rough-and-ready roses that were on the property when we moved here ten years ago. All we've done is keep the trees away and let them be.

Peony! Mine are hidden away, but I cut them and bring them into the kitchen in bountiful bunches.

Chills and Thrills

2009-05-18T09:41:00.004-05:00

I didn't take this picture. cherokeegirl at Dave's garden receives credit. This is, however, a brown thrasher, the same species of bird which Dad reported taking a "shower" in the bird bath yesterday. We have a pair of them around here, and you'll see one or the other if you spend any time at all on the front porch. None of the pictures I found on the internet did justice to the true color of this bird, which is not brown at all; I'd call it russet.Yes, I'll post just about anything. This is a shot of the scrap lumber stored under the back deck (to keep it dry). You may or may not notice the creature on that two by four. Here's a close-up. Isn't it nice how often animals will wait for me to rush inside, locate my camera and then fumble around several minutes while I try to take their picture? You'll notice that this beauty could, if s/he wanted, stretch the entire width of that 2x4.

Among a Host...

2009-05-17T07:49:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Sunna was gentle on my head. Sif worked with me hand-in-hand. Odin and Hel reserve places for me among the honored, but I think I will not stay long with either of them. I am too much a Thor's woman, and we are more concerned with life, for which death is only the fertilizer.

Wizards and Mages

2009-05-13T07:39:00.003-05:00

Here are the Mage of Labyrinths followed by the Wizard of Rivergarth first walking through the labyrinth while thunder grumbled and rain threatened, spit, then passed us by.

-ling

2009-05-12T16:29:00.004-05:00

Label for this post is "utterly random." It is an update to my musings of August 3, Dales-ings.

-ling
diminutive suffix, 1314, from Old English -ling a nominal suffix (not originally diminutive): attested in historical Germanic languages as a simple suffix, but probably representing a fusion of the suffixes represented by English -le (compare icicle, thimble, handle), Old English -ol, -ul, -el; and -ing, suffix indicating "person or thing of a specific kind or origin; in masculine nouns also "son of" (compare farthing, atheling, Old English horing "adulterer, fornicator"). Both these suffixes had occasional dimunitive force, but this was only slightly evident in Old English -ling and its equivalents in Germanic languages except Old Norse, where it commonly was used as a diminutive suffix, especially in words designating the young of animals (e.g. gæslingr "gosling"). Thus it is possible that the diminutive use that developed in Middle English is from Old Norse.

*edited in order to expand abbreviations

Two Projects in Completion

2009-05-10T09:49:00.001-05:00

--finishing the roof of the rose pergola--

--digging the last posthole for the new fence--

Watch your step!

2009-05-09T08:22:00.003-05:00

I'm still here, actually, just awfully busy. Outside when I can be after housework, trying to keep up with the garden in periods between rains. Reading, too, and writing, but merely notes and an unkempt poem. Al is with me as he took off half a day Friday to help with construction projects. The whole property is one, big construction zone! Watch your step!

It's all a consequence of my guiding theme, my garden motto, for the year. This season it is "bones, bones, beautiful bones," and so I have been working on the "hardscape," garden structures, pathways, fences, trellises, borders, anything that involves bricks, stones or lumber--bones. It's an awful mess, but we ARE making progress despite appearances.

The Wisdom of Rainy Days

2009-05-05T11:04:00.002-05:00

.............CXXXIII
.
Water is taught by thirst;
Land, by the oceans passed;
Transport, by throe;
Peace, by its battles told;
Love, by memorial mould;
Birds, by the snow.

-E.D.

This Morning in the Garden...

2009-05-04T09:09:00.006-05:00

The yellow iris are blooming, matching the yellow sun. One goddess to another?

A small tragedy, this tomato plant (no. 16) snipped off an inch above ground level as though felled in the night by a Lilliputian lumberjack. I have no more replacements, although I could get one next time I go out. If I leave it alone, it will recover, growing new leaves and eventually catching up, but the wait might be too agonizing for this gardener.

My Continuing Love Affair

2009-05-02T14:41:00.003-05:00

My love affair with things that are small, secret, quietly lovely or silently remarkable continues unabated. I posted pictures of this delicate fern unfurling last year, and here I am again, enthralled both by its form (fascinating) and colors (achingly subtle). If I think about it too long, I'm positively overcome by the mechanism, the movement, of a fern uncoiling.

Delicate flower on a plant as hardy as they come. The contrast interests me. This is the only shade of columbine in my garden, because it's the one variety tough enough to return on its own year after year. I'm a sucker for plants that are both beautiful and independent!

Here are those Stars of Bethlehem that had me awestruck back in February. A few of them are blooming, this one beside a volunteer poppy. This spot was supposed to be new grass, planted in the vacancy left when I moved the garden east, but it was so thick with poppies that I decided to leave off mowing until after they bloom.

My close-ups are abysmal, I know. Sorry about that. You may be able to distinguish the two plants here. The heart-shaped leaves are the American Redbud. They sprout up everywhere, and if you don't move them before they're about 8 inches high, they have already grown a tap root nearly 2 feet deep, making them difficult to dig out. This redbud's companion is poison ivy; those are the notched leaves. I'm not particularly sensitive to it, but Al is, so the chore of removing it falls to me. Although if it were not for Alan, I'd probably just leave it, because it doesn't bother me, and the leaves are stunning red in the fall. By the way, the long, knife-like leaves are of faded daffodils. All these had to be moved when I was digging out bricks.

Pre-Construction Pictures

2009-05-02T14:31:00.004-05:00

These are my obligatory pre-pictures of the work I'm doing to replace the walkways behind the house. I've removed almost all of the old brickwork. That patch I'm standing on in the last picture is the last of it to go. Next step is the framing in, which will include digging out the dirt in areas where I have to expand and scrounging up enough 2x4s to do the job. I'd hate to have to buy any.

Rheinwood Hearth: Walburg 2009

2009-05-01T22:31:00.001-05:00

Siegfried Goodfellow

2009-05-01T10:32:00.004-05:00

Heathen Ranter (Siegfried Goodfellow) is a brilliant thinker and writer. His only flaw is that he can't title a piece properly even to save his life. Take the name of his blog, for instance. Heathen Ranter, it's atrocious and completely fails to represent his thoughts or his style. His most current post is titled, "Big Guns Do Not Always Win Out." Again, the genius of his essay is betrayed by his lousy title. Now, I understand he uses this "Big Gun" metaphor as a thread of consistency through the work, closing, in fact, with "Those who carry big guns may lack it where it counts, you know what I mean?" Nevertheless, he's not giving himself enough credit for statements like this...

Because phenomena can be difficult to describe, and patterns may sometimes take sophisticated techniques to fully identify and bring to the surface in good resolution --- hey, but none of that is very "flashy", is it, and if your entire intent is to engage in a little display-behavior with your homies, not so interesting --- certain phenomena may require fairly involved and nuanced apparati to lock down, and it is always very easy to knock down someone else's scaffolding if your entire intent is to knock down.

Goodfellow mentions Obama in this essay, appropriate because the two display similar modes of practical analysis guided by an underlying philosophy of benevolent justice and hope. They are both dreamers, but reaching for the stars with their feet firmly planted on a ground of intelligence cultivated with knowledge and nourished with a bit of wisdom.

I can only conclude he has a blind spot when it comes to titles, because there's no reason for the failure, otherwise, when he can express himself as in the following,

If you're caught up in debunking, congratulations! You've come into the "terrible two's" of critical thinking, where you've just learned that you have the ability to say "no" to anything and everything you want in the world. Congratulations! But just remember, while you're in this phase, don't be surprised if some of us treat you for exactly the intellectual age you're demonstrating. Because critical thinking involves a lot more than simply the ability to say "no". You've got the "critical" part down, but you've left out the "thinking" part, which involves deep contemplation, rigorous intellectual engagement of one's intuition and pattern-recognition skills, and the ability to revisit topics again and again regardless of their level of "proof" or "disproof", because many, many times, important nuances, partial truths, and sometimes even whole truths, are left by the wayside to fall in the cracks in the midst of debates which are less respectful mutual inquiry and dialogue about differences than polemics.

My only reason in pointing this out today is that I needed an excuse to highlight his blog and some catch to send my readers over to view it. I've only been reading him a short time, but I'm deeply impressed. Even when I discover myself quibbling over a minor point here or there, I always learn, and he makes me think on a deeper (better) level than before.

The First of May

2009-04-30T05:53:00.004-05:00

Walpurgis Night from Wikipedia:

From the Mystical Cauldron website:

Celebrated on May 1st, this is a lusty and glorious Sabbat, rich in World history and tradition. It is called by many names, including Walpugisnacht (Germany), Sheila-na-Gig (Ireland), Tithe Day (also Germany), and Festival of Pan (Greece).

Beltane Around The World

In Britain, the royal family still burns a balefire each May Eve to keep the family line going.

In Norway, old brooms are thrown into the balefire and new ones are dedicated to their purpose. .

In Scotland the balefire was lit for the 'need fire', the only non-ritual fire allowed to burn on this day.

The Norse believed you had to sleep at home on Beltane Eve and keep the hearth fire burning strongly until dawn.

In Wales the balefires were kept burning for three days, because 3 was a sacred number to the Celts.

In the Alps of Italy, the festival is Floralia. Flowers and plants are picked on May 1st and a very potent wine is made from them. Each year, all the old wine has to be comsumed before midnight and more flowers and plants gathered for the next year's batch.

In China, it is considered good luck to eat noodles in the Springtime.

Beltane Traditions

Mischievous fairies were believed to abound at Beltane and great care was taken to protect against them. Daisy chains were woven just prior to ritual and places around children's necks for protection.

A hot coal was placed inside the butter churns to keep fairies out ot them.

Livestock was fed fresh dill for protection.

Bells were hung on altars and worn on the ankles of dancers and ritual goers. The ringing of the bells was believed to hurt the fairies' ears and keep them away.

Brooms were ridden hobbyhorse-style over fields and through pastures in symbolic fertility rites.

Ashes from the Beltane fire were scattered over the fields to bless and protect them. The ashes were also placed in a small bag and worn as fertility amulets by infertile women.

Special summer pastures for the livestock were used only after May 1st since fields were the realm of the Pooka from Samhain to Beltane.

Livestock animals were driven through or between waning balefires for purification, protection and healing.

Although May is the month of the sacred marriage of the God & Goddess, it is considered unlucky for humans to marry in May, which is why June is the traditional month for marriages.

The term 'Maying' refers to celebrating all of the traditions of May Day. It was traditional to go on outings and picnics in the woods or meadows to enjoy the beauty of Nature, pick flowers and/or make love. Couples who consumated their relationship in this way were considered to have had a "greenwood marriage". Children conceived while 'A-Maying' are born in February and are referred to as "Merry Begots".

Dancing around the Maypole may be the best known Beltane tradition.

Comment: I was born in February. :)

From the fish eaters website:

Sadly, the word "Walpurgisnacht" is nowadays mostly associated with pagans, who see the day as a mere adjunct to Beltane (May Day) and even dare to use the label "Walpurgisnacht" for their festivities. Where Walpurgisnacht is celebrated, it is usually celebrated wrongly, in a non-Catholic -- sometimes even anti-Catholic -- manner. Odes to May, Spring, fertility, and the earth, the playing of pranks -- these are the things most often thought of when "Walpurgisnacht" comes to mind, and thoughts of the great Saint are all too rare.

...But it doesn't have to be that way. Bonfires-- practically ubiquitous in Catholic celebrations but which pagans also light today in honor of the god (demon) Bel -- recall the divine light that illuminated Wallburga's monastery, and as their hypnotic beauty is enjoyed, one can pray a litany to St. Walburga. The ancient Swedish tradition of collecting branches at dusk to decorate homes? Make those branches oak branches, and decorate them with symbols of Christ and the great Apostles to Germany to recall the Benedectines' victory over paganism, as perfectly seen in the story of St. Boniface and the "sacred oak." As to foods, German fare and beer brewed by Benedictines or their brothers, the Trappists, sound perfect.

Now, because Walpurgisnacht does fall on the same date as Beltane Eve, this will be, for pagans, a night much like Hallowe'en (the Eve of All Saints) insofar as the pagan Samhain coincides calendrically with our Feasts for the dead. Therefore, prayers for pagans and for witches who hold their sabats tonight would be a wonderful thing. May St. Walburga -- who, with St. Boniface, her brothers, and other Benedictines -- brought the good news of Christ to Germany intercede for them now and bring them to Jesus through His Church.

Comment: The veneer that Christians gloss over their appropriation of pagan customs is thin indeed. By the way, Walburga was made a saint only after it was discovered that oil was oozing from her remains. Icky!

from the Irminenschaft website:

Walburga Frouwa [An Freya] Walburga Frouwa is Ing Fro's twin sister, and most popular of all Goddesses among Heathen of eldritch times as well as today. In the Norse sources, Walburga Frouwa is named strictly by her title (Freya) as is her brother Ing Fro (Frey): Lady and Lord, respectively, and its from this association of name that Wicca’s ‘Lord and Lady’ is drawn. The Frouwa is infamous for her abilities at magan-craft and witching, and it's of no surprise to find her as the patroness of witches and the center of praise on Walburganaht (a long-standing witches’ holiday). Walburga Frouwa’s wain is drawn by cats, which are thought to be sacred to her -the popular image of a witch accompanied by a (black) cat originates from the association of the felines to the Goddess.

Comment: There is continuing discussion about the identity of goddesses mentioned in the Northern literature. Because their roles overlap, this is especially true between Frigg (wife of Odin) and Freya. They are, however, distinct entities, Frigg being of the Aesir, Freya of the Vanir, and their natures vary accordingly.

From the Central States Heathens reminder:

Walburg is better known as Walpurgisnacht or May Eve. Walburg is a Goddess of our Folk, combining some of the traits of Her better-known peers. Reflect on Freya, Frigga and Hel as the repository of the glorious dead; then you will have an idea of Walburg's nature. On this day, pour a horn of Mead upon the Earth in memory of our heroes.

Good Walpurgisnacht and Happy May Day!

State of the Garden

2009-04-29T10:32:00.005-05:00

Here, roughly, is how the tomatoes are set up. They're planted about 4 feet apart on center, caged in 5 foot high surrounds of what I call "hog wire" and watered by soaker hose. I gambled and planted all Bush Celebrity, hoping for a big crop of big tomatoes. If the variety fails, then I lose it all. There are 16 plants. Three already were clipped off at mulch level by cutworms, but I was expecting that and replanted immediately with backups I purchased at the same time. The plants are now about 3x the size of when I planted and, hopefully, beyond the size of their cutworm vulnerability. Naturally, I'm braced for the next disaster.

Here's the first view (I think) that I've published of the new firepit in the "Annex," that piece of land I stole to add to the garden's eastern end in order to obtain more sun-lit acreage for tomatoes. (That's why I can squeeze in 16 this year.) At this stage, I'm merely collecting stones and playing around with the arrangement. Once I have enough, I'll purchase sand and set them in. There's also a possibility that I'll move the pit. Nothing is definite yet as I only stole this land last winter and need time to think and play and watch how the seasons change it.

Here's the garden layout (minus the Annex where I'm standing). There are more raised beds, more mulched paths, better borders. The A-frame was necessary for peas, because the entire northern fence length is devoted to tomatoes this year. I took this picture this morning after very heavy rains last night.

What's this? It is my bane and my blessing, a morning glory seedling. To my eye, it forms a prominent "M." Does anyone else see it? They begin sprouting as soon as it's warm and wet enough, that would be about now, late April, early May, and I fancy the M is for May, a herald of the 1st. There are thousands and thousands of these little seedlings and as fast as I clear them from the beds, they sprout again, fat, little M's from fat, little seeds forming carpets of M's that will grow into mats and mats of twining vines to lift pink whirls that will daintily unfurl in worship of all those yellow, morning suns to come.

Glove Update

2009-04-29T09:13:00.005-05:00

Last year about this time, May Day, in fact, I blogged about gardening. Doh!

Among other things, I wrote this:

Gloves. I'm wearing a blue cloth pair here because I was doing light work, but I usually wear a green and black pair at $22 each + shipping from Smith & Hawken. Gloves are my primary tool in the garden. I weed, dig, scoop, haul and basically DO everything with my gloves. The Smith & Hawken pair I've discovered have all the features I find so essential. There's a soft patch of fabric along the thumb with which I can wipe sweat from my face, reinforced fingertips (very important) and ventilation across the back. They also have a velcro closure to fit snugly around my wrists so soil and insects don't slip down into the gloves (which is awfully annoying). I buy two each season.

I'm back with an update. First, I tried to extend last year's pair into autumn/winter and worked with holey gloves. That messed up my schedule, and I began a new pair way too early in the season this year. Now even before May Day, I need another pair, because the late winter/early spring work already wore out the last. That leads me to the second update; Smith and Hawken has removed my gloves from their online catalog! I was in a mild panic for about five minutes until I found Womanswork. Their motto is "strong women~building a gentle world." Here's the link to my gloves. Notice I can now get them in pink! JOY!

Big Loss

2009-04-28T11:02:00.004-05:00

The recent thunderstorms that moved through here came with high winds and deluging rains. One of the casualties of the storms was this tree in the neighbor's yard. It's a big loss, and we'll miss it this summer and for many summers to come.

Recipe: Pork Chops

2009-04-28T09:25:00.003-05:00

I get to do the meat dish for RheinWood Hearth's feast on Friday. Because we're also having potatoes, I found this slow cooker recipe for pork chops that sounds perfect to serve with taters. I can't wait to try it, and I'll let you know how it goes.

From Paula: Shortly after my husband and I began dating, I prepared the following dish. It was the first meal I'd cooked for him. He told me later that he knew as soon as he tasted those pork chops that he was going to marry me....
Ingredients:
4 to 6 pork chops, bone-in or boneless
flour
salt and pepper
1/4 cup oil
1 large onion, sliced
2 cubes or equivalent chicken boullion granules or base
2 cups hot water
8 oz. sour cream (fat free is okay)
Preparation: Season pork chops to taste and dredge in flour. Lightly brown in oil and place in slow cooker; top with onion slices. Dissolve or soften boullion in hot water and pour over chops. Cook on low 7-8 hours. After the pork chops have cooked, stir 2 tablespoons flour into the sour cream; stir into cooking juices. (It is not necessary for this to be totally blended into boullion, but don't just dump it on top either.) Turn slow cooker to high for 15-30 minutes or until liquid is slightly thickened. Serve with rice, noodles or potatoes as you choose. The sour cream sauce is delicious! Serves 4 to 6.

Labyrinth: Possible Designs and Materials

2009-04-27T12:13:00.003-05:00

My uncle sent these gorgeous photos to me today. The first two are credited to the Labyrinth Company. The third is a typical Baltic pattern. I adore the effect in the fourth. I also like the relative simplicity of that one.

Labyrinth: Another Pre-Site View

2009-04-25T17:52:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I posted the view of the front yard as I faced east. This is the view facing west, and I mowed the lawn this morning ahead of tonight's predicted rain.

Pretty in Pink

2009-04-25T17:48:00.003-05:00

Dad and I have been enjoying watching this azalea bud and blossom. It fairly glows scarlet.

This bush and I have a long history together and to watch it grow more beautiful each year is a special joy, as though by its success my memories grow richer.

The Projects Never End

2009-04-25T17:33:00.005-05:00

Last week it was the pergola, still unfinished because we haven't found the right materials for the overhead slats. This week I installed a brick border at the edge of the pavement to make one walk wide enough for the lawn mower. Hard work--'nuff said. This weekend Artisan Al, my favorite construction worker, stone mason, hole digger, tree trimmer and all-around handy man, cut the bricks to add a little style to my work. Besides, all those geometrical figures make me nuts.

Nice right? There's not much he can't do.

This week I'll make a push to finish digging out the bricks of the old (and delapidated) walkway behind the house and hope that by next weekend I can have it ready for us to pour new, concrete walks. Did I mention that Artisan Al is very handy at lifting bags of concrete, too?

Labyrinth: Choosing a Site

2009-04-24T17:26:00.006-05:00

I have the special honor in May of receiving an expert in labyrinths, the creator of Mindful Labyrinths, who happens to also be my uncle. I mentioned my desire to build a labyrinth at Rivergarth and also my previous difficulty, and he offered to help me when he's here. Yeehaw!

He also suggested I begin a record of the labyrinth's development--an excellent idea if I can keep it up!

A pic taken this evening of a potential site for the labyrinth, this open space in the front yard.

I took this pic last summer. The bush loaded in pink panicles is the same as the large, leafless bush in the upper left quadrant of the first pic above.

Our Earliest First for Hummingbirds

2009-04-24T17:20:00.004-05:00

Calloo, Callay! O, Frabjous Day!

Previously our first sighting date at Rivergarth was May 5. Traditionally, I hang the feeders on May 1, but after sighting a hummer sipping from a vinca major blossom, I set them out. Only April 24! Yay!

This is a view of the feeder at Dad's window.

Garage Sale Poetry

2009-04-24T08:23:00.003-05:00

...those poems that have sat in the garage for years, not good enough to use, but not quite ready for the dustbin if only someone with a little effort would take the time to salvage them, patch a rip, revarnish, mend a broken slat or maybe tease it all apart and make the resulting cloth into something new. I have some of those broken, garage sale poems that I should throw out, but can't quite make myself do it. I get that pack rat gene from my mom, a trait against which I must have constant vigilance--and still the stuffs pile up in the nest. Here's one I really should trash, but it holds the sentimental memory of a certain time of study around 2000, a time of Classic gods and of the Kalevala and other connections I made around then. It's not of much use except to store away, only to bring it out once in a while, blow off the dust, sneeze and remember.

Tell the Lay of Ol' Pan Horny
How he prances spry and randy
By the brook of living waters,
Where the hollow reeds are soughing
By the pines with cones and pollen,
By the pillar lofty rising,
In the moonlight he is dancing.
Not alone the goat God dances,
But with maidens fair and lusty.
All his satyr girls adore him;
On the lawn they love him rutting;
In the trees they love him laughing;
On the rocks they watch him gambol;
Over hills they watch him trotting,
Hills that quake when rage is breaking
Like the raptured issue bursting.
Expectation stirs the ether.
Spritely lasses shake their nubbins,
Hairy tails of piebald patterns,
While above the clouds are moiling.
Then the rain and hail are striking.
Lightning strikes the highest oak tree,
Thunder quails the nymphic lovelies
As they covey then they scatter.
In their Panic rushing blindly
Into arms so strong and tender,
Of the all-embracing Lover,
He who rules the mighty thunder,
Lord of Sea and Sun and Nature,
He who banishes the Fury
With a strident stomp, a mandate,
Where the damsels find their refuge,
Sanctuary, arms encircling,
Like the seasons that are turning.
In the Spring they love him nightly;
Summer warms their blood for dancing;
In the Autumn surge their urges;
Winter finds the goat girls lounging
In the cave of Pan's reclining
With his wine and bread and honey,
With his goat girls by the fireside,
With his maidens sweet and musky,
Passes winter drunk and lusty
Till the southern Sun approaches
From the south whence He was summoned.
Then the goat God herds his ladies,
With their bellies fat with babies,
On to pastures green and springing,
By the swollen, warbling streamside.
Heavily the gravid goat girls
Welcome spring in quiet fashion.
Then the night hears in the meadow
Groans abundant, blood and birthing.
In the starlight Pan is pacing
On the hilltop till the morning.
Then the kids, the little Pan kids
With their itchy horns just budding
And the lively, infant faun girls
With their silky hair just growing
Play on lawns among the daisies,
Tumbling, innocently prancing,
Till their cloven hooves are weary
And their little tummies grumble.
Off to rest on mama's titties,
Ample dugs divine and milky,
While their Father, God and Ruler
Sage and mighty, watches over.
Yet another good year passes
Under Sun and Moon and Heaven
While the Lord is merry-making
Through the sacred seasons burning.
Thus immortal insight springs up
Like the blossoms He has bidden
In the meadow as he passes,
In the goat God's cloven hoofprint,
Like the seed that He is planting
In the flesh of pretty satyrs.
From the pipes that He is playing,
In the drifting songs of goat herds
And the goat girls they are tending,
Is the harmony and timbre,
Of the wisdom for tomorrow.

-me

I See Eye-to-Eye with Robins

2009-04-22T14:43:00.003-05:00

The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
An April but begun.

The robin is the one
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.

-E.D.

Planting Zinnia Seeds

2009-04-21T08:09:00.002-05:00

Rivergarth, April 20, 2009

A lady red upon the hill...

2009-04-20T08:03:00.004-05:00

Reading through the Nature section of Emily's Collected Poems, each one seems to capture and then reveal in fresh colors the myriad essences of the springtime experience. Emily had two (among many others I'm sure) enviable traits. We know she was an honest and expressive writer. The second trait we deduce from her practice of the first, that she possessed a sensitive and receptive soul.

Here she is painting the paper with the colors of her spring, infusing the threads with the fragrances she captures and sharing her insight of the very trees beneath which she wanders. Notice, too, Emily's excitement in these revelations as she marks her verses with exclamations (in contrast to the staid woods). It is our excitement, too, both as we wander and as we share the season with her in verse.

A lady red upon the hill
Her annual secret keeps;
A lady white within the field
In placid lily sleeps!

The tidy breezes with their brooms
Sweep vale, and hill, and tree!
Prithee, my pretty housewives!
Who may expected be?

The neighbors do not yet suspect!
The woods exchange a smile--
Orchard, and buttercup, and bird--
In such a little while!

And yet how still the landscape stands,
How nonchalant the wood,
As if the resurrection
Were nothing very odd!

Thor's Day

2009-04-16T16:31:00.001-05:00

Astrophotography from Deep Sky Colors.

Robert Orson Ryan

2009-04-15T08:43:00.005-05:00

Genealogy research sometimes produces revelations. Like today. A little groggy with morning, I opened an email file from a distant Ryan cousin and suddenly my great-great-grandfather was looking right at me from out of the computer screen. It's the first time I've ever seen his face, never dreamed I even would see him and now he's here in my life; Robert Orson Ryan.
According to my information, he was born in February of 1846 in Illinois. He married a woman named Nancy, and they had eight children, one of them my great-grandmother.

To Say Nothing But Thank You

2009-04-15T07:38:00.003-05:00

My uncle sent this to me today, no doubt reading my future in his morning tea leaves.

To Say Nothing But Thank You

All day I try to say nothing but thank you,
breathe the syllables in and out with every step I
take through the rooms of my house and outside into
a profusion of shaggy-headed dandelions in the garden
where the tulips' black stamens shake in their crimson cups.

I am saying thank you, yes, to this burgeoning spring
and to the cold wind of its changes. Gratitude comes easy
after a hot shower, when my loosened muscles work,
when eyes and mind begin to clear and even unruly
hair combs into place.

Dialogue with the invisible can go on every minute,
and with surprising gaiety I am saying thank you as I
remember who I am, a woman learning to praise
something as small as dandelion petals floating on the
steaming surface of this bowl of vegetable soup,
my happy, savoring tongue.

~ Jeanne Lohmann

Bio: At nearly eighty-six, she relishes walks through her Olympia, Washington, neighborhood and remains active in the local poetry community.

Wiki Error

2009-04-12T17:40:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I posted a picture of the monument around the corner from my house. Feeling remiss, I bothered to look up the treaty commemorated on that stone and found this entry at Wiki. I also found this error in the entry, "There is a monument one mile west of the Little Arkansas River, on the Council Grounds, in Kansas, commemorating the Treaty."

The monument, the plaque-adorned boulder I pictured, is not west of our river, it's east and no where near a full mile away from its banks.

I did find fascinating the names which appear on that treaty, all of whom no doubt wandered through my yard during the two months of their council. One of these was Chief Satanta, properly Set-t'ainte, the Kiowa word for White Bear. Set-t'ainte is quoted saying,

I love the land and the buffalo. I will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers in these banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo. And when I see that my heart feels like bursting.

A council along the Little Arkansas River is just such a place and time the chief might have been describing. I would hazard a guess that the great oak out front was alive at the signing of this failed treaty, autumn of 1865, and witnessed the entire proceedings. If I could speak to that oak, imagine what I might learn.

A Nightmare Poem

2009-04-12T08:44:00.006-05:00

Over the years I've done my writing on several generations of computers. The problem with that is updating the file types to be read on the new machine with all its updated software. I'm experiencing that again as I struggle to open old files, some created in the 90s, with the Office software that "Ajay" loaded when he fixed my computer a few weeks ago. It's a mild nightmare to say the least.

A few of the files are opening, but only a few, probably some that I updated to new formats recently. Speaking of nightmares, here's a poem I wrote pre-2000 after having a terrible nightmare. It's a far cry from what I usually publish here, and for that reason, just the thing to publish.

.......................Nightmare Visit

Welcome to my nightmare just down this marble step.

In a niche behind this wall are piled clowns and dolls.

A cobweb spans that other alcove like dusty tiffany,

concealing silences that devils dare not break.

Notice the brigands brandishing sunset-lit torches

guarding the exit? Vultures guard the thieves.

Here, an auburn-haired Mnemosyne robed in steel

screams for pearls and blood and leans over an ebony cradle.

Behind this iron door, an endless corridor. Its end,

a fire burning whispers and old grimoires, around which a feast

of dirt and bone is spread on the Mensa Sacra.

Saved from eating the King's first fruit we now rise

on a titanic raven to a topaz moon where stinging nettles

wend in chiaroscuric craters and hyenas harvest

ten thousand pricks a night, saving them for little heroes.

Wandering, we arrive at a windowless wall stretching into winter

where a famished Queen sways in her chair at a wheel,

nervously brushing spiders from her hair and spins glass

from bits of mirror strewn at her naked feet.

Warring cardinals declare morning on the lawn

as our visit falls away like cherry petals in late spring.

Padding past the barren nursery at dawn

on oddly pained soles we imagine a dusty wind

rustles the faded wallroses and sighs advice,

but we've had enough of visions and hurry on.

A Jaunt

2009-04-11T16:05:00.007-05:00

Where the skies are not cloudy all day. That's wheat, folks.

After doing some repairs around the house and yard, Al and I took a short spin on the motorcycle. A girl has got to see some uncluttered Kansas sky once in a while. We also stopped to take a picture of the peace treaty monument near our house. All these years Al thought it was a Chisholm Trail marker. Can you believe that?!

Oh, That Betty Brown

2009-04-11T07:50:00.004-05:00

From the great state of Texas comes this:

Texas lawmaker: Asians should change their names to make them ‘easier for Americans to deal with.’

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Heathenry: Bunnies and Battle-axes

2009-04-10T09:57:00.004-05:00

This is a good video at any time, but especially as Sigrblot is approaching next week. McNallen explains the holy day and presents a core principle of Heathenry in about eight minutes. Alan Watts wrote, "This is it," but Heathens would say instead, "Life is it."

Day of Remembrance - Jarl Hakon

2009-04-09T06:25:00.002-05:00

Jarl Hakon enjoys more than one reference in the literature, thus we know a bit more about his history. Below are a few links for those who'd like to learn more.

Hakon Jarl Runestones

Early Kings of Norway

Day of Remembrance for Jarl Hakon from the Assembly of the Elder Troth (all errors in typing belong to them)

Jarl Hakon was a dedicated heathen who fought against the tyrannical King Harald Fairhair of Norway and his sons, and actually regained ground lost to the Christianisation of his country.Hakon experienced the violence of religious imperialism first-hand. His father, Sigurd, Jarl of Kladir, was burned to death inside his hall by Harald's grandsons. Their leader was Harald Greycloak. At the urging of his nymphomaniacal mother, Harald and his brothers destroyed heathen temples, murdered chieftains, and levied exorbitant taxes. It was said that their sacrileges brought the bad weather and crop failures of the time.

Hakon vowed revenge, and got it by causing the deaths of Greycloak and his allies. Finally, Hakon and the Danish king - who was also named Harald - sailed to Norway with 600 ships and defeated Finehair's descendants. Denmark's ruler placed Hakon over western Norway, and the Jarl in turn paid tribute and vowed to assist the king in war.

During his reign, Hakon brought back the ancient rights of chieftains and farmers which Harald Finehair and his outlaw offspring had usurped. He rebuilt temples and honoured the Gods, so that, according to the skald Einar Helgason in his poem "Vellekla", the Northlands became fruitful again:

Earth bestows bounty as before Since the generous chieftain cheersThe folk to fare To worship without fear.

When war broke out between King Harald and the German Emperor Otto II, Hakon responded. He fought stoutly along the Danavirki, on the border between Denmark and Germany. Unfortunately for the Danes and for Hakon, the Germans won. Emperor Otto then put pressure on Harald to convert Norway - and Hakon - to Christianity. The Jarl was forcibly baptised, and made to take home with him a boatload of priests who were to christen his countrymen.

However, Hakon was made of sterner stuff than that. At the mouth of the fjord, he threw the priests overboard to sink or swim. He then attacked Danish lands in Skania, sailed to the east coast of Sweden, and gave a great sacrifice to Odin on the islands called the Gautasker. As Snorri says in Heimskringla, "Then two ravens came flying and croaked loudly, and the earl thought it certain that Odin had accepted the sacrifice, and that he would have success in fighting".

The omen proved true. Harald tried to invade Norway, but was thrown back. His days of paying tribute were over. Svein Forkbeard and the Jomsvikings hoped to ambush him but he discovered their scheme and countered with an overwhelming fleet of 180 ships and the famous battle of Hjorungavag resulted. When the outcome of the slaughter was in doubt, a hailstorm arose and blew into the faces of Hakon's foes, sending them fleeing. Odin had spoken.

Hakon modelled many of the virtues that we as Asafolk uphold. He was robust, bold and honourable. His valiant efforts for Asatru may have kept our ways alive long enough transferred to Iceland, where they took root in the literature that has come down to us. In other words, without Hakon we might not have our religion today. We owe him more than of Remembrance - but it is a start.

The reminder at Central States Heathens had this note: As a ruler of the western part of the realm, Hakon restored the worship of the Old Gods and cast out the alien religion. Our Folk regained religious liberties that were eradicated by Xianity. The flame of our faith burned brighter in an era of gathering gloom. It may be that Hakon's defense of our ancestral ways helped encourage the survival of our traditions in Iceland; the seeds of modern Asatru.

Dogs of Sorrento

2009-04-08T18:18:00.002-05:00

There were a lot of dogs in Sorrento, both on the street and in yards. One poor old dog that looked like a red lion lived on the street with a bad leg. We saw him in the evening up in the city and in the morning down at the docks. Somehow during the night he had wandered down the cliffs. With all my heart, I wanted to have him euthanized. It made me a little sick to hear people talk about him, oblivious to his condition.

For several reasons this was my first trip to Europe that I didn't experience jet lag. Usually I lose the first two days in misery as I adjust. Not so this time. In fact, I was feeling just fine the first evening we arrived in Sorrento, and I talked Al into taking a stroll into town. The air was cool that night and light to the touch. Very few people were about as we hiked up (always start going up so you can come home going down) the residential street in the dark. It was a narrow street with these wonderful, moss-covered walls on both sides. Occasionally a gate would open, releasing a private car into the lane, forcing us into the 8 inches of leeway as it passed.

We were standing looking down into a garden full of olive trees when we heard a great, deep roar from behind us and above. (On the cliffs of Sorrento, all views are either above or below.) Startled, we looked up to see these two, large dogs in the yard above our heads. They continued to loudly warn us away, at which point we decided to head back down to the hotel.

We slept well that night with the balcony doors left open and were wakened by competing choruses of birds, amplified against the cliff. The doves were by far the loudest and most easily distinguished, dispelling all romantic notions of these birds as gentle coo-ers.

Picasa3

2009-04-08T17:04:00.004-05:00

I downloaded Picasa3. The format is tidy, and it looks promising.

Well, here it is, a photo from the trip, taken on our first day in Sorrento. The mountain at the left is Mt. Vesuvius. The rocky outcrop at the right is more of the Sorrentine peninsula. The water is the Gulf of Naples. That's me looking every bit a tourist in plaid (only Northerners and Americans wear plaid) and my "whisper" dangling from my neck. (Soon to be publishing more pictures to Facebook.)

My Trip to Sorrento?

2009-04-07T07:50:00.003-05:00

I'd love to be poignant today, but I'm just too busy. I have my travel photos transferred to my computer, but my recent technical woes also deleted my photo editing software, leaving me a bit high and dry. I don't have time to remedy that either...yet. Instead of being poignant, I'll do something a bit weird and share this link to another person's blog, a post about her trip to Sorrento. One person's trip to Sorrento is just about the same as another's, isn't it? She also went to Capri, as we did, so enjoy her pictures!

When SPRING slows down a bit or I do, I'll get to work on those photos again.

Proud Again

2009-04-06T10:36:00.005-05:00

Yesterday (Sunday) was the one year anniversary of this blog. Today, then, is the first day of a new year. Isn't it appropriate that the first book I'll finish on my new reading list is President Obama's Dreams from My Father. He has already drawn a tear or two as I read on the plane. If I pause between the lines at any time to remember the current status of the author, I get all choked up all over again.

The G20 and NATO summits were at their height with President Obama in attendance while I was in Europe. Despite the economic problems, Europe is bursting with optimism. Europe adores this man and while I try to exercise moderation, I, too, am as giddy as a Beatles-fan when I hear our President speak of tolerance of differing worldviews and respect for all people.

During the Bush years, one could feel the scorn of our European hosts while traveling, but now I'm proud to be American when I travel among our allies, a word into which President Obama has breathed new spirit.

Song of the Grandfather Bees

2009-04-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

I am gone from my beloved Rivergarth for a week. When I return I expect many changes in my garden. I assume the lilacs will be at the inception of bloom. The redbuds and the crabapples will be bright with flowers. The bees will be busy, I think.

The lilacs, bending many a year,
..With purple load will hang;
The bees will not forget the tune
..Their old forefathers sang.

--Emily, of course. Who else uses such vivid paints?

Love burns through the Putting in the Seed

2009-03-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

While I am surely enjoying the jeweled tones of Italy, there is no spring for me like a Kansas spring, neither in delicacy nor in fury. Those who don't garden think the summer burns, but for the "planter", it's spring that is on fire with green flames of life and love.

Putting in the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work tonight
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth,
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

--Robert Frost

"...finding it where you are."

2009-03-30T15:38:00.000-05:00

I may have gone away, but not to find a better place or even a better way. I learned very early that the neighbor has crabgrass same as I do. I'll go on my "green visit" and love it there, but I'll love my home just as much when I return, because I know the "trick of living" where I am, although I find it neither slow nor all that terribly difficult to go to Walden.

Going to Walden

It isn't very far as highways lie.
I might be back by nightfall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.
Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.
Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

--Mary Oliver

In Heaven All Along

2009-03-29T06:00:00.002-05:00

The Heathen seizes the day and lives life well. It is an art as well as a philosophy. Emily Dickinson was one of those great artists.

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome,

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches,--a noted clergyman,--
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along!

Plans for Italy

2009-03-28T06:00:00.002-05:00

I wrote this on Wednesday, because I knew I'd be too busy to blog today. Today I am adding the last items to my carry-on and heading to the airport. Our flight for Sorrento leaves around 2pm. Notice I added a weather bar for Sorrento over at the right. The weather is roughly the same as here, 50s to 60s, chances of rain now and then. We're used to that, because we always go about this time, early spring. It makes packing that much easier.

The weather may be similar, but I must admit to looking forward to the magnificent ocean views. The hotel claims to offer views of the bay in one direction and a view of Mt. Vesuvius in the other. It's a win-win!

What I don't look forward to is the 10 hour flight. My husband and I dread that, but once again we'll fold our aging, aching bones into our seats and beg stewards for water throughout all for a chance to unfold once again in Europe in spring.

This year we're going back to Italy, because when we last went to Rome we regretted that we had missed Pompeii. We had to correct that. We'll also visit the Isle of Capri, including Anacapri and the Villa of San Michele. Heavens above, I can't wait for that! We haven't decided yet about the Blue Grotto. I'll let you know when I return. Naturally, we'll spend a day in Pompeii. We're also considering a day trip to Rome, but it depends on just how strong we're feeling.

Rome was for us a fairy tale. We fell head over heels in love with that city and both knew it needed more time than the week we spent exploring, but we're older and slower. If we could detour to Florence, I'd definitely go north, because one can not gaze long enough at Michelangelo's "David." These days it may be enough for us to get to Pompeii, Capri and Naples. We'll see.

The best thing about Italy is the gelato! ...To-Die-For Gelati! When in Rome, we had it from nearly every vendor we passed. One of the numerous guides I've read about Naples promises the same, streets and streets of gelato vendors! Bless the Italians!